I haven't wrote anything for so long.
My brain does not allow myself to do so. There are so many things that are bothering me, mostly about myself, who am i in this world, how people see me, what is going to happen to me. Every second i try to make some sense out of everything but i'm left even more confused than i already was.

Reality is scary; simply because you are never sure if you are genuinely aware of reality. That's because what i see myself as, might just be an illusion i created to ease my fear of being myself. I always thought i was a strong person, that i had values and strong opinions, that i am someone who will do big things. I always thought that i am a nice person, that i genuinely care for others, that i'm okay, just a little confused, but am i? Am i any of these things?

I feel like a ghost wandering from place to place. People are unaware of my existence unless i make sure they notice i'm there too. But i stopped blaming society long ago, it's not anyone's fault, i'm not sure if it's mine either,maybe it's my brain's, it plays tricks sometimes. But i am my brain.

Everything feels like it quietly falls apart, slowly but deadly and you can not notice the damage unless you straight up look at it. I don't think i am as okay as i say that i am, but i am okay enough, and i guess that's what's wrong. I can't wish for help because i am okay enough. It's a fine line that keeps me hanging there. We fail to care about ourselves unless it's obvious that we should. I guess i am like that too.

I don't know when i'm right or wrong, when i'm happy or just getting by. I find myself unbearable, weak and tiny, like a trembling deer chased by lions, only i am both the deer and the lion. I don't seem to be able to hide my genuine feelings anymore. I started to catch myself hesitating before answering to "how are you" or i keep repeating the phrase "i'm anxious about this or that". I seem to not be able to fake a smile anymore or other times i'm smiling too much. I trust people who seem to sympathise with me, strangers or not, i ran to open arms like a homeless puppy or i poured my soul on small glasses and forced myself to stop before i break them. It's weird because i sometimes feel in control and other times i'm all over the place or when i talk about myself to curious eyes i say too much as if i truly know what i'm talking about.

I fear so many things, so so many things that keep me from living. I want to do things, be with people, date, say my opinions out loud, i want to live and not force myself to carry the weight of my head everywhere i go. There are times when i put my guard down and i close my eyes and i feel my head falling to the side, too heavy to keep it still. I fear everything but love so much.

The reality of who i really am is suffocating and i don't know, i don't know, i don't know. My god how i wish i could cry in public and whine and scream on top of my lungs "******* all!" just because i can't be any of them. Or to make my mum understand that when i tell her that i am not that good i mean "mum!i!am!not!okay!" but i'm scared to hurt her. How could i choose to make my mother cry when i tell her that i think about death a lot. But i'm not doing it, because i am okay enough.

How i wish i could date the guys that call me "interesting" and want to get to know me, but i'm too scared of speaking to strangers so i act cold to turn them down when in reality i'd love to feel their warmth on my skin. If i wasn't afraid of going to new places, or talking to people, or experiencing life, or not ******* up every line i say because i'm too stressed to actually put my words in a correct order. There is such a huge gap between who i want to be or how i feel like i am and who i actually am or even who i end up looking like.

If there was no fear, how could my life be? Who could i be if i wasn't afraid of being? Really, is there anything in my life other than my loneliness and a universe of polluted thoughts? Am i anything more than flesh and bones? And how? How can i change and find myself? How do people know who they are if i, who knows too much about myself cannot understand a single part of my existence? If i can't understand myself then how can i ever be able to truly understand others, to be happy, or to be alive? How could i truly ever live my life without feeling the weight of myself dragging me down?

I sense the catastrophe running through my veins. Really, how small can a person become? I feel so small in my own room, even smaller in my own life. Am i even as big as a dust in space, as alive as a falling star or is there nothing for me? I wish i could be someone you turn to face, but maybe my sunrays faded away and maybe i'm way too small to take up all that space; but for you to look at me, that would have been the biggest accomplishment i have ever made.

But don't know how to quantify
What happened,
This poem is for you.

Remember that just because your mouth cannot cradle
The word ****
Between clenched teeth like you know it should,
Doesn't invalidate what happened to you.

I didn't - don't,
Know how to describe
What happened
To me either.
And while I know my friends had good intentions
When they insisted that, yes,
It was ****,
And that, no,
It was not my fault,
It feels as if they are shoving
These words into my lungs,
Bile burns the back of my throat and
I can't breathe.

The next morning,
My mind refused to admit
What my body knew and
My stomach threatened to desert me as
My voice had deserted me
The night before, and
A tremor tunneled it's way into
My bones, to make a home
Beneath my skin like he did.
It hasn't stopped yet,
I fear it never will.

For days afterwards,
I lied awake, trying in vain
To erase the memory
Of his touch,
Focusing on tracing the cracks
On the ceiling instead of the
Trails his hands etched
Into my skin.

To even think of it
As ****
Is to give it a name, to
Make it tangible and real when
I just want to forget.
But when we refuse to name
Our reality, we are giving it
More power than it deserves,
And I am tired of being afraid
Of my own tongue.

But I still can't call it ****,
Not yet,
And that's okay for right now
Because, one day,
I will find the strength
To say his name.

heartbreak starts before the end
it starts the first time he lets you down
the first time he says yes
and then says sorry, i’m so sorry
i’m tired and i have this and this
and this but i’ll make it up to you
he says, i’ll make it up to you
and that’s when it starts.
that’s when you know
you’re in too deep
because he was too tired
and you were disappointed
and held your pillow tight
and wished he checked his phone more.
it starts the first time you make
an excuse for him
“he was up late studying”
you say
“it’s 4pm”, they argue,
but he sleeps late, or he had an exam,
or he’s tired today
you say, and bite your lip
“he’s had a long week,
he wishes he could be here”
or you think he would
if he could just wake
UP, it starts the moment you
are genuinely annoyed
with something he does,
the second you think
for the love of a god you don’t believe in, boy,
am i not enough to keep your eyes open,
please, wake up, i’m here, i’m here
i’m right here next to you
it starts the moment his friend runs
and hugs you, and says i saw
him, this morning
when he didn’t text you back,
when you were telling your friends
he cared so much,
she saw him,
i saw him, she says,
this morning, and i told him
she says, in the way
all his friends talk,
like they know you, like you belong,
i saw his girlfriend, she said,
and he said
you’re not his girlfriend,
i’m not, you say, i’m not
through a smile and you feel it,
you feel it start in your chest,
and that’s it, that’s what it feels like,
that’s the moment, after it starts,
far after it starts, because you can’t
even get to the good part until it starts,
but that ache behind your eyes,
and in the very center of your stomach
and in your anchor line to earth,
you feel the tug go slack
you can actually feel yourself
start to drift away
ever so slightly,
and that’s when you know
for sure that it’s started
it’s like crying over a dog video
and sore ***** after taking off a bra
and finally feeling a cramp
you know what’s coming
you’ve known what’s coming
you saw the signs, from the very beginning
you stayed up all night talking to him,
and you had a class the next day
but you refused to go to sleep,
you knew what was coming when he said
he was leaving
you knew he was leaving
not just here
not just home
but this stage of life
this life we live together, separately
will change to something
you can’t share
you don’t WANT to share
you knew this was coming
but that’s the next stage, you see, is knowing,
and you know before it’s over
you’ve had your best day
you’ve had your best kiss
you’ve had your best
and now you just have each other
in bits
and pieces
and short blue bubbles on blurry screens
full of empty words,
you know he’s scared
but he won’t talk about it
not to you
that’s not your role
you’re the distraction
you love him?
if not then why does the phrase
echo in your head while stirring pasta
while changing lanes and folding clothes
i love you, i love you, i love you
they mock, you don’t love him
you don’t know him
except you know how dark
and round his eyes get when he’s
terrified and the way he sings to you
when you’re drunk and no one else
can see and that he likes
4 doritos locos tacos with sour cream
and no ice in his soft drinks
because it waters them down,
you love all the parts of him you know
even the part of him that
sets five alarms and still misses
the radio show at 1pm.
you love him?
let him break your heart
it’s the only way real love ever ends
you knew it was coming
you know it’s coming
and it’s an honor to have your heart broken by him

In times like these
Words are threaded in a blanket of tension
Syllables counting hate
Out of rhythm with love
in the name of the divine
yet they would be appalled by us, I’m certain
Our land dies
The sky hates us
Get $2 off that burger
Pay your taxes
***** the *****
Cherish the female’s cells
Crucify a mother who can’t nourish her child
Love thy neighbour
Shoot your black brother
**** your Muslim sister
Charge your iPhone
Wonder about the land, gazing at the stars
crush the reef beneath your feet
Download the new update
Love your body
You are a narcissist
Share your body - uploaded
Shamed transferred, virus downloaded
Smile online
Cry offline
Like if you enjoyed this piece
Smiley face.

growing up is
so inevitable
to the point where
you only notice it
in subtle moments.

like when you see
the once perfectly glazed over scenarios
that your parents once shielded
you from,
now graded and ugly, years of iron-curtained rust covering it whole, for the first time.

like going to highschool and realizing,
everything is not just a comfortable
sunday afternoon,
where we all love to learn and enjoy your individual merits;
but rather a concealed house fire that a stranger started at your bedroom window,
but calls your name from your front door, saying he’ll save you.

when i was young i wanted to be a singer-
to sing about my childish fantasies- where
the world was all colors, not just monochromatic, and the art of language was interchangeable beyond just its origin, but within its people.

in school we learn about the aspects of originality.
how conformity is better in some circumstances
and how nonconformity could have the same premise, if done the way we were taught.
take this test, take that.
effort becomes meaningless when there’s no rhyme to your reason.

we spew out information from the day we can retain it, then on to the day we decide to spew it on to our children.
regurgitating the ethical analytics of our 9-5 jobs or hobbies until we can go home, indulge our brains on our skin tight routines,


just so that we can do it all again in the morning.

this is not the direction that we were supposed to go in...
when the ****-sapiens started off as hunters and gathers
they realized they needed something easier.
they meant so that they’d have more time to live the lives they longed to.
they didn’t mean to make their lives so comfortable into which they cannot have one,
as we are not ourselves these days
without a phone in hand.

we only take things in that we want to hear.
we fill up the entirety of our minds with pointless ideologies
uncomical celebrities
mixed with discombobulated news stories
the phone between our fingers is so focused in on that we can’t even achieve a longer attention span than a goldfish.

we’ve cast a metal, deceiving hero’s cape over our backs, and a sneering mask over our eyes. the shoes we wear, coated in the the soot we didn’t see on our path,
and the gloves on our hands, in the words of Langston Hughes,
are giving absolutely no protection
against the bearing frost over our fields of opportunities.

how old we are, we could not say.
the days go by so fast when we know not
the aspects of our self preservation.

This is my body
Size 12, wiggle room
Jiggly thighs, 5’2
(And a quarter. It matters)
Overgrown roots blend
Into DIY blonde,
Somewhere in between
“Well kept” and “definitely depressed”
Acne scars, decently white teeth
Scar on my brow from that time I tried
Rollerblading into the sun, I swallowed the pavement on the way down. You can still see the cracks in my teeth, just underneath my laugh lines. I always tried to stay as positive as possible. No matter what.

This is my body, it holds memories like water weight.
Destined to burst, void of drains,
Man Made pores- formed from the inside out by cries for help that never surfaced.
Porous and calloused, found out that its purpose for a year straight was simply surviving.

This is my body. Flashbacks on a marquee, survivor’s hands painted nicely, so no one ever asked me why they were so *****, and broken, and ******.

This is my body
His dead skin under my nails,
Petrified.
Proof of a fight. scars on my arms
North of my elbow: survivor’s guilt in the shape of a Star, I spent last summer wishing night after night I wasn’t alive- I was so tired from pretending.

This is my body.
Latches like a leech to anything warm.
****** dry all of my loved ones in the year I spent spiraling,
searching for solace or sanity-
even safety. Found nothing but panic.
Nervous bird in a cage.
Narrow shoulders.
Boxer’s stance.
Dancing on the front line where I should have been to fight
Using my fists never worked.  
Neither did screaming “no, no, no”
Present until that very day. And now I lay silent.
Absent like a soldier, staring into space.
Trying to make sense of the shaking.


This is my body.
I have my mother’s eyes, her mother’s brain.
Black and white, strict like law,
Cemented in place for weeks at a time,
Then Moving at the speed of light, I cannot stop or I will die.
Creaky chest upside down, my stomach clings to my ribs.
Stand still until the room stops spinning
Or until my head stops hurting
And my legs stop shaking
And you stop when I ask you to stop
“This is my body” I whisper behind your hands as you steal all autonomy
I am left with nothing


This is my body.
He took it from me,
Did not even have to try to ruin my insides,
Did not blink an eye in the year I spent unraveling in front of everyone I loved,
Pulled out every lash I had, lost my job because of panic attacks,
But I am commanding it back.
I spent the last 6 months building from the ground up.
Spent the last 12 taking up the space I did not before.
The last 3 learning that it’s okay to.
I stopped apologizing in January.
I started yelling again in February.
It took that long to think anyone would ever hear me,
No one ever had.
This year I took my body back.
This is my body. Size 12, 5’2. Wiggle room.
Sometimes it can’t breathe right and shuts down in big crowds.
But this is my body and it is big and it is loud.
It takes up space, it is strong, it is pretty.
This is my body and for absolutely none if it, am I sorry.
Not a single part.

Partial to a past that explained my experiences in a causal tone. Like a story that had to unfold, I made sure it made sense because I felt myself losing control. I had to have control of it. Apologies for every mistake I’d ever made because amending my wrongs was praying for one night without terrors. Tug of war with God. Cause and effect. I earned my hurt. I earned my hurt.


People that believe in karma drive me ******* nuts. Plagued with guilt from my childhood because I got ***** at 21 and I thought maybe if I had been nicer to Cassandra B on the playground at 9 maybe I could have kept my dignity that night in my dorm room. But it doesn’t work like that.

I have survivor’s hands. *****, calloused, jealous hands. I am not innocent, I am vindictive and manipulative and when I argue with the person I love I get mean. When I talk to myself in the mirror, I am cruel. I am not innocent. I was a bully as a child. I thought all of these things were a part of the reason why someone took my body from me when I was 21.

Hello Poetry is built
like a social media site
but those of us that make
the front page
have like 10 followers.

Personally,
I have 2
(shout out to Perry
and Fredrick Njroge)
but it's not a big deal.
Because that's not what I'm here for.

"We write to be seen,
But we slam to be heard."